Venom
by FabulousFangs
Summary: Eric is sent on a job by his superior. Find the home, destroy the evidence, and be back before dawn. Simple enough, right?


_Ok, so this is my first fanfiction ever. The idea had been floating around in my head for a week or two, and I finally got the chance to write it out. I hope you like it! It should start to get interesting in the next few chapters. =) Please read and review!_

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"You know, there is more to being sheriff than just...sitting around on a throne and looking pretty. Am I correct?" Eric was gripping the phone mutely to his ear, biting his tongue so hard he was afraid he was going to slice right through it. Being courteous and respectful was not one of his stronger points."I am quite aware of that, thank you." This was the most polite phrase his enraged mind could muster while trying to steer the car on the expressway; suppressing the urge to intentionally ram the slow moving truck in front of him. Driving was _so_ tedious.

Eric's eyes flashed down to the speedometer - 75 MPH. He could run faster than this.

"I am currently on my way. Is that all?" Eric's voice was curt and monotone as usual, fighting the urge to inject as much venom into his voice as possible. The vampire had to remind himself of his place, whether he liked it or not. He breathed an annoyed sigh as he snapped the phone shut, not waiting for a response from the voice on the other line. He threw the phone down on the empty leather seat next to him, not removing his pale blue eyes from the road as his foot hovered over the accelerator. He wanted nothing more than to gun it and fly around the truck in front of him, but instead he forced his white-knuckles to hold the steering wheel in front of him in a death grip. The exit would be coming up in less than a mile.

Taking the turn with surprising speed and threatening to flip Pam's black Escalade over, Eric swung into the left lane once again to make his turn down the dark gravel road. Mentally he pitied any human that had to drive down here at night; it looked one of those off the bean path expressway exits that they made into horror movies. The road (if you could even call it that) was eerily empty and dark. No streetlights or even stop signs broke the cover of night, and Eric flipped his highbeams on. The last thing he needed to deal with was Pam bitching at him about a destroyed bumper due to misplaced deer. He could hear the gravel road crunch beneath his tires, and even with his vampiric vision it was difficult to see the road beyond his headlights. Eric drove slow, his foot still hovering over the gas pedal in an irritated manner. Once again, driving was _so_ tedious.

When the road took another sudden sharp turn, Eric spun the wheel with expert precision, loosening his painfully tight grip to finger comb through his blond hair. It was three in the morning, and dangerously close to dawn. Birds were beginning to stir in the forest, and the crickets and frogs had been silenced long ago. Because of the last minute order from a superior, Eric left the bar with what he had on - dark wash designer jeans that almost cost more than the SUV he was driving, and an equally dark designer shirt. His shoes were, surprisingly, not designer and rather plain. The black sneakers had just happened to be around when the phone rang, and were the first thing he laid eyes on when he left his office almost a half hour ago.

Mentally he berated himself for not making Pam or one of his other employees run out to do this errand. He wasn't some lap dog...he had his own people to do these sort of things. Running out to a home in the middle of nowhere at three am was not something that Eric Northman did without question. He had demanded to know why he was being asked to do this, and what were the circumstances. The vampire on the other line had reminded Eric of his place, but was only met with an irritated tone. Eric was not leaving the club until he knew exactly what he was getting himself into.

Twenty minutes and two heated arguments later, the sheriff had gotten all he needed answered. He was being asked to do this because the home in question had _happened _to be in his territory. That answered the first question simply - but the answer to second had not been so plain. Eric's superior had been vague on the phone, and the only information he would divulge was rather unhelpful. A vampire that had been involved with human trafficking had been caught and killed by law enforcement. Miraculously, this vampire's estate still remained hidden from the humans who had ended his life. Eric originally had found this idea to be absurd. How hard was it to find? But now, driving in the dark off of spoken directions, he was beginning to understand how this was possible. Without directions, he would have never found the residence either. His job was simple. Go to the home, destroy evidence of any illegal activity that would shed a negative light on the vampires in the area, and leave. Quick and easy, despite the fact that he was racing the sun.

Eric squinted at the dull light from beyond the headlights and made out the beginning of an overgrown driveway. He accelerated smoothly, feeling the bump of the curb and continuing down the winding drive. It wasn't long before the outline of a house came into view. The lights were off, the roof looked ready to collapse, and the lawn made the home resemble more of a jungle than an actual residence. If Eric didn't know better, he would have guessed the place had been abandoned for years. A small smile crept over his face. Clever vampire.

The thought that said-vampire was obviously not that clever removed the smile. If he was that smart he wouldn't have been caught by humans, after all. It took a certain level of idiocy to be captured by mortals. Easing the SUV to a stop near the decrepit garage, Eric cut the engine and opened his door, stepping down on the overgrown and cracked pavement with a frown. The vampire didn't bother to shut the car door as he started to walk into the jungle-like entrance, that annoying dinging from truck drilling into his ears and making him want to tear his hair out. He wasn't planning on staying long. As he made his way around a crab apple tree and a particulary large thistle plant, Eric wasn't surprised when he was met by a locked door and shut windows. If he had been anywhere else, he would have glanced around to make sure no prying eyes watched him break into the home. But he was quite sure that this home was about as remote as you could get in the Tristate area, so he busted the door open with little restraint.

It was darker inside the home than it had been outside. It didn't make much of a difference to Eric, though. His eye adjusted to the scene of an empty front room. Devoid of furniture, carpet, and anything else that made a home a 'home'. Once inside the residence, Eric did a quick scan of the property. Secretly he hoped there would be no humans in the home. But, as fate would have it, he was pinged by the heartbeat of not one, but two humans. Glancing suspiciously around the abnormally empty home as he walked, Eric was becoming more and more uneasy. It was a rare emotion for the vampire, so he made a decision to get done with this as fast as he could.

When he reached the staircase, he found himself smiling once more. It was broken in several spots, making it nearly impossible and downright suicidal for any human to try to climb it. Once again, he was impressed by this vampire's clever thinking. It was a shame that he was dead - it by the looks of things he would have made a great ally. Eric assumed that up these stairs, he would find what he was looking for. Of course, the coffin would need to be buried somewhere, and the two surviving humans needed to be taken care of. While Eric scaled the steps with little difficulty and cat-like agility, he did another scan of the upstairs. The humans were located to the direct left. Just as Eric had thought this, he turned to face a door, and once again was met with a simple deadbolt lock. This time he kicked it in, his eyes needing to adjust now to the new lighting in the room.

Dull light poured from a simple plug-in nightlight stuck in the corner socket. Eric winced as he waited for his pupils to adjust - focusing on the dark, unmoving objects on the ground several feet in front of him. The night light seemed to be the only thing that adorned the room aside from large silver-colored chains that hooked in the wall at random points. Several of the chains were empty, save for two that had the humans attached to them. The metal collars that dug into their necks looked more like they belonged on a history channel segment about medieval torture rather on the cracked white walls of this abandoned house. Eric wasn't particularly bothered by the two barely breathing bodies in front of him, both laid on the floor and looking like (in his eyes) squashed bugs.

One of the humans looked annoyingly frail; her knees brought up into her chest and her arms held loosely around them. Her hair was entangled at the ends, knots and broken strands of hair making her auburn hair look more like a rats nest than anything else. The man that rested next to her was breathing heavily, and Eric didn't have to struggle to smell the death that hovered around him. Centuries of killing had made him an expert of predicting when death came knocking. Eric had crossed the room in two strides. The man was a lost cause, and kneeling now in front of the girl, he realized that she was probably the same. He had choices. Kill her now, and take her body and the man's along with the coffin. Eric felt lucky knowing that nothing else in this disgusting home screamed 'vampire'. He would take the bodies and the coffin and be finished with it.

The vampire stood up, still hovering over the girl as he checked his watch. Dawn was getting dangerously close, and he had no time to kill and dispose properly of these bodies. He could kill them now and throw them in Pam's truck, dealing with them tomorrow evening, but the prospect of listening to Pam rant on about the smell of rotting flesh indented in her leather upholstery made him think twice about leaving the bodies in overnight - especially with the Louisiana sun roasting the corpses in there during the day. She would open the door to the smell of toasted human. He smiled at the idea, but decided against it; conceding with the fact that he would never hear the end of it.

So, it was decided. He would take the humans to the bar, stick them on the couch for the day, and properly deal with them at dusk. That was, of course, if they didn't die during the course of the day. The male looked particularly damaged, and the female wasn't too far behind him. Eric exhaled, going over a quick plan of action in his mind. Take the humans, come back for the coffin. For a moment he considered juggling all three just to cut down on the amount of time he needed to go back and forth between the SUV and the house, but found himself breaking the chains that kept the two attached to the wall and throwing them over both shoulders as he made his way down the stairs. He felt like some modern firefighter, making his way down the broken steps with expert, light feet and two humans draped over his back.

When Eric reached the car, he surprisingly found himself being gently with the humans, proping them up in the backseat and actually taking the time to put seatbelts on them. They reminded him of breakable porcelain dolls or something, regardless of how annoyingly frail and broken they already were. He reminded himself quickly that they were not going to be kept - they would be killed at dusk and disposed of. He had no use for two new humans running around his bar; Ginger already annoyed him enough. But still, in some morbid sense, he couldn't help the idea that he was rescuing humans like they were puppies at a shelter or something. It was all very surreal and he resisted the urge to name them.

Several moments later Eric had the coffin and both humans securely in the Cadillac, and found himself racing the sun back to his bar. He took no notice to posted speed signs; flying on and off of the expressway and following the winding road back the way he came. When he finally reached his destination, he felt himself already beginning to get tired, muscles fatigued and mind lazily thinking of nothing but sleep. The coffin could wait in the car; but the humans he once again thrown over his shoulder and walked into the empty bar through the back. With slight annoyance, Eric found that Pam and the bartender had already retreated to their coffins for the morning, leaving him with the duty of placing both humans on the ground in his office, each with a towel draped over them and barely covering their torsos. He wasn't sure if the floor was drafty - he had never slept on it, after all.

To be honest, Eric wasn't exactly the nurturing type. He knew little about taking care of sick or injured humans, and mentally he reasoned with himself that since he found them on the floor, what was the difference if they slept there now? It's not like they would be alive for much longer anyway. Besides, if one of them died in their sleep before dusk, he would be extremely angry to find a dead human on one of his couches or chairs. The carpet on the other hand, had seen much worse than a dead body.


End file.
